While the power was out for the last several days, I found myself spending time at a lot of local stores. No, I wasn’t there to buy stuff. I was there to keep warm! Look, when it’s cold out and you don’t have any heat – you’ll do what you have to do to stay warm. For me, that included going to the local Barnes & Noble and reading books (which is something that I do anyway), walking around the local Walmart, and spending time walking around Wegmans (okay I admit it – I bought some stuff for my car while I was at Wegmans).

That’s the base of information that you need to know for this entry. I’ll add this one, crucial piece of information: given that there is near total devastation in many of New Jersey’s shore communities due to the recent super storm and blizzard, there are a lot of out-of-state people up here helping out at a variety of different companies. For example, I’ve seen utility workers from down south (who are running circles around the New Jersey teams, by the way). I’ve also seen insurance adjusters from out-of-state helping homeowners with their claims.

It’s a group effort to recover here in New Jersey.

With that information out of the way, the title of this entry suggests that there are evangelizers among us – even in Monmouth County! Here’s a story that I sent to some of my friends after spending some time warming up and reading a book at the local Barnes & Noble three nights ago. I think you’ll enjoy this:

I’ve been sitting at Barnes & Noble for about 30 minutes and this insurance adjuster – I can tell he’s not from around here by his accent – was sitting across from me the entire time doing some work. I paid no mind to him – I was just flipping between my cell phone and my NOOK.

Anyway, the guy just gathered his things and got ready to leave. When he was ready to go he came over to me and said, “Sir?” I looked up and said, “Yes.”

He said, “Can I tell you something?” I said, “Yeah.”

He said, “Do you know Jesus Christ?” I said, “Yes.”

He said, “Well, his real name is Jehovah. It’s Yahweh. And he’s coming back soon and I just wanted to tell you that he loves you. Just wanted to tell you that he’s coming back and that he loves you.”

I said, “Thank you.”

And he said, “Alright. Have a good night.” And he walked out of the store.

I’m compelled to write this experience on the blog because this type of stuff just doesn’t happen too often in New Jersey. We’re a state with a lot of skeptical people; we have people who are automatically apprehensive towards those that they don’t know. I’ve visited the South many times and it’s a bit disorienting when you’re walking on the street and random strangers greet you with a genuine, “Good afternoon. How do you do today?” It always stops me in my tracks until I get used to it again. That type of forward communication doesn’t happen in New Jersey unless it’s one person looking at another person the wrong way until someone cracks and says, “What are you looking at?”

It’s our way of life in this state. Don’t judge us.

But I had two immediate reactions to this guy coming up to me and saying what he said. First, I immediately felt warmed up in my spiritual heart. I don’t know about you all out there in internet land, but I go to church each Sunday and on Holy Days and I enjoy going to church. I didn’t always enjoy going to church, but I do now and I hope that I will continue to enjoy going to church. So when this person came up to me to tell me things that I pretty much already know and believe in from the teachings of my church – it just felt good.

Second, as I felt warmed up I began to feel better about the horrible situation that I found myself in with no electricity and a cold home to go back to that night. Hey, Jesus loves me – what else do I need, right? 🙂

And the third nearly automatic reaction that I had to this guy was a very small voice in my head saying, “What’s his angle? What’s he up to? Keep an eye on him as he leaves the store and make sure he doesn’t hang around. If he follows you home, drive to the police station instead. Maybe you should confront him outside and see what his deal is. I don’t know if I trust him. He did reference Jesus, but who is he?”

Hey, I’m from New Jersey – I’m skeptical about people sometimes!

Anyway, it was an interesting encounter and an overall good message. Over the last few days, I’ve thought about this message and this guy’s confidence and lack of fear in delivering it. Jesus Christ is coming back and he loves you.

We all have different quirks that define the way we look at the world. For example, if you hate extremely loud noises, then you’re probably not going to be the type of person to get front row tickets at a rock concert. Or, if you’re the type of person that loves to read books, you’ll probably put more value in reading your NOOK at Barnes & Noble versus spending the night out partying with your friends at the local bar.

Well, when I’m teaching in the classroom (including in the digital classroom) I have certain quirks. I don’t like students who are in school for free on athletic scholarships and then choose to fall asleep in class. That happened once in my class and it burned me up to the point where I reported it to the kid’s coaches. He stayed awake and did very well in the class from that point forward. Also, I don’t like when I see a kid who is obviously coming from a life of privilege (believe it or not, most of my Freshman students would actually tell me that they came from wealth – very odd) wasting their time in class by slacking off or clacking away on their Droids or iPhones. These kids made me want to ask them why they’re wasting their parents’ money, but I don’t cross those bounds (yet!).

The purpose of this entry is to talk about one of my biggest quirks when it comes to dealing with my students: when they can’t spell my last name. This actually happens more than 50% of the time. That’s right – my students misspell my last name more than half of the time that they reach out to me for assistance…

How can students possibly misspell my last name?! Honestly? My last name is slapped on the syllabus for the course, it’s in my e-mail signature, it’s all over the course content – and yet there are still students who can’t manage to spell my last name correctly? Really? What?!

The paragraph above is how I feel every time I see my last name butchered by a student.

I think what really irks me is that while my name is a good, strong Italian name, it’s still printed on nearly every document that I hand out when I teach a course. In fact, it’s in the damn e-mail address that the college gives me to interact with the students! And if a simple-minded student can’t figure out that the e-mail address is my name, I have a standardized signature at the end of each message which gives my full name. That’s what irks me – the fact that the correct spelling of my last name is readily available to anyone who spends more than 5 seconds trying to find it.

When I have a student in class that can’t spend the extra 5 seconds to find the correct spelling of my name before they send me an e-mail or put it on one of their papers, then I know that I’m dealing with a simple-minded person. And this isn’t a statement of arrogance. Not at all. Actually, this is something that I began testing 5 years ago when I started doing this little teaching gig on the side. Whenever I had a student in class who continually butchers my name over and over again, I begin to take a closer look at their actions in class. Many of them don’t take notes or they choose to play on their phones during the lectures; many of them have poor attendance records.

If you’re reading this and you teach young adults or professional adults, then I’d be interested in your thoughts on this issue. I think this is about as direct a condemnation of the level of college-preparedness that we have in our public school system as I can provide.

We need to better prepare our high school students for college. And if they’re not ready for college-level study, then we need to stop encouraging them to attend college. We should NOT be encouraging these kids to take out a mountain of debt so they an live up to a now-archaic ideal that simply is not for everyone.

Anyway, if you’re a student and you’re reading this – spell your professor’s name correctly. While they probably won’t mention it if you spell their name incorrectly, believe me when I say that this sets off red lights in the professor’s head and makes them take a closer look at you as a student (both your in-class actions and your submissions). And for crying out loud – your professor’s last name is on the syllabus! Take the 5 seconds to find out the proper spelling!

Way back when I was a young kid I learned that the easiest way to learn more stuff was to read more books. I always wanted to know more so I really enjoyed reading a lot of different types of material from textbooks to magazines to novels to short stories to you name it. And when the internet was in its infancy, I enjoyed reading internet discussion boards like Prodigy.

Remember Prodigy? Wow – what an old reference!

Well, I still like to learn more about the world around me and my love of reading has stuck with me. In my bedroom I have a bookshelf filled with books (most of which I haven’t read through yet) and in my spare bedroom I have a large plastic tote container also filled with books (also mostly unread). Plus, my Mom bought me a NOOK Color a few years ago and that thing is filled with an entirely different set of books than are sitting on my bookshelves.

But it’s not just physical books and e-books that I enjoy reading. I also enjoy reading various blogs, news, and commentary websites. In fact, I use the Google Reader interface and that poor thing is overloaded with hundreds of updates everyday. Granted, I only read 3 – 5 of the actual updates, but 3 – 5 articles each day over the course of a week begins to add up!

And the love of reading continues… each weekend I receive the bulletin from church and I go through it to make sure that there isn’t anything new going on that I’ve missed. Of course, that’s a quick read and I can usually get through it as I eat my lunch on Sunday. But then you have the occasional weekend when the diocesan newspaper is released and that thing is packed with news! I just received one of them last weekend and I’m still getting through it. Which leads me to the newspaper and “news” in general. I really enjoy waking up in the morning and scanning through the New York Times website as well as the FOX News website (hey – you need to get both sides of the story, right?). I imagine that whenever I buy a house I’ll have to get a weekender subscription to the New York Times. Or maybe the online version – who knows?

Then there is the “To Read” file that I keep on my computer. Whenever I get sent an article or a report that is too long to read in one sitting, I stick it in that file and hope to get back to it at some point. As you might imagine, that folder gets bigger and bigger. Not to mention that I have a whole series of bookmarks on my computer that are holding old article that I need to go back and read at some point.

Right now I’m reading three different books for the class that I’m taking (remember that?). I’m also at the beginning of the eighth book in the Sword of Truth Series (remember that, too?) on my NOOK. And I’m about halfway through reading The Jersey Sting. Very interesting book considering that I worked in the real estate business in Deal Township, New Jersey.

I think if I can get through the eighth book of the Sword of Truth series on the NOOK and the rest of The Jersey Sting, then I’ll feel less pressure to read. Once I get those books out of the way, I’m going to start picking off the articles in my saved bookmarks folder. Then I’m going to pick off the articles that I’ve saved on the Google Reader. The next thing is going to be the “To Read” folder and then I’m going to begin hitting those books sitting on my bookshelf and in the plastic tote.

Some of you may be familiar with the new crowd funding website Kickstarter.com. I stumbled across this website a number of months ago and I immediately loved it. The main gist of the website is aspiring artists, developers, writers, entrepreneurs, etc. post descriptions of their projects online and then ask you to help them fund their goals. It’s a way of harnessing the do-gooder, helping spirit that exists in all of us while, at the same time, helping someone achieve their goals and realize their dreams.

But Kickstarter is better than just feeling good about what you do with your money – you actually get something in return for your dollars.

The first campaign that I put some money towards was a music project. Believe it or not, there is a woman professional wrestler who is an accomplished country music artist. She’s not half bad, actually! Anyway, this woman was trying to make a second album with funding from Kickstarter and was asking for anyone to contribute $5, $10, $50, $100, and so on towards the costs to develop her album. After the word spread around the internet, she reached her funding goal and is now in the process of making the music. The dollar amount that you contribute to a campaign dictates what you’ll get in return. Personally, I only contribute at a level where I’m going to get something tangible. For this woman’s campaign, I contributed $50 (funded from my website company) which gets me both a physical copy of the new album plus the full MP3 version of the album, my name in the “thank you” section of the album, my CD autographed by the woman, and an invitation-only web concert. Sometimes the rewards are much more extravagant. For example, in this campaign if you donated $10,000, then you received all of these items, a 30-minute in-home concert, a hand-painted t-shirt from the singer, an executive producer listing for the album, and a personalized thank you video.

And each Kickstarter campaign is different. Seriously, check out the link above – I think you’ll enjoy what you find on there.

This entry, though, is about a new video game console that I saw on Kickstarter. Here, watch the video for yourself:

Did you watch the video? It’s a pretty cool concept, right? Some of you might be wondering, “Well, what’s the difference between this OUYA video game system and the Nintendo Wii or the Playstation 3 or something like that?” And that’s a good question. I’ve been doing some research on this OUYA concept and what these folks are trying to do and this is what I think the difference is between this console and the others.

It’s open.

When I say it’s open I mean that you can go in and hack it and it doesn’t void a warranty or become an illegal device or anything like you might imagine. In other words, people can go in and hack the core system’s operating protocols (I’m probably not using the right language) and it’s not a problem at all (assuming, of course, that the hacking doesn’t fry the system). The OUYA system is built on the same software infrastructure as the Droid cell phones out there – it’s an Android-based system. What this means is that anyone who can develop an “app” for a Droid cell phone or an app for a Droid tablet (for example, a NOOK) can have that app operationable on the OUYA system. This creates two immediate outcomes – one interesting and one alarming.

The interesting outcome is that since the console is built on the Android system, there are going to be thousands of apps and mobile games available for download on the first day that this thing is hooked up in your living room. The second, more alarming outcome is that I can’t imagine wanting to play any of the time-wasting games on my cell phone on the big screen of my television.

That second outcome is one of the issues that the OUYA development team is taking very seriously. They are talking to a variety of high-level gaming software companies to ensure that there are blockbuster-level games available for this system as soon as it hits the market. That’s going to be a huge task, but with only one week of starting their Kickstarter campaign these folks have already generated over $5.2 million from over 40,000 backers.

That’s a lot of money to make in a single week!

I admit that I’m not technical enough to know much more about how this thing is going to work, but I do know that if you Bing “OUYA” you’ll find a bunch of positive and negative press for the not-yet-created console. For my part, I like supporting these Kickstarter campaigns and I’ve supported a variety of independent video games on that website already. So I supported the OUYA campaign at the $99 level. This gets me the ability to reserve my username before the console goes live to market, a “Founder” emblem emblazoned next to my username forever, and an OUYA console plus one controller. That’s right – a brand new video game system (expected to be delivered some time in March 2013) for $99 (plus $20 for shipping).

You can’t even buy a used current generation console for $99!

If you’re interested in the OUYA or in at least learning more about it, check out their Kickstarter page. This is a very interesting concept and I’m glad to support it!

Since I haven’t posted an originally-written update in about 20 days, I thought it would be a good idea to post up some quick thoughts about what’s been going on with the blog and some other random updates. First, if you’re craving more of my random thoughts throughout the day, then you’re a sick individual you should follow me on Twitter @JVince81. If you want a brief glimpse at what I’m putting on Twitter these days, then you only need to glance to the right of this entry and read the tweet feed that I added to the site about two weeks ago.

As you’ll see, the feed contains just random thoughts, complaints, and observations. I’m not solving world hunger here, folks – I’m just living my life!

On the topic of what is going on with this blog there’s nothing major to update everyone on, but here is the general rundown:

First, for some reason we’ve been receiving a large number of spammy comments. Now, I write “spammy” comments because these comments aren’t your typical “click here for drugs” robotic spam comments, but rather vitriolic hate speech that is actually written by a human being. It’s really some pretty vicious stuff that has no place on a personal blog. And I don’t know how many times I have to write this in the comments section, but this always has been and always will be a personal blog. In other words, what I say goes so if you write a comment that attacks another commenter or blatantly distorts the issues presented in the various updates, you can stick your comment up your ass. Now granted, in the last year we’ve only gotten about 6 or 7 really vitriolic, arrogant, hateful comments and all of those were moderated before they made it on to the site. However, if you plan on writing bullshit and hate in the comments section you might as well save yourself the time because it’s not getting posted, period. My personal blog, my dictatorial rules – very simple to understand.

Second, I have a lot of content written and ready to be posted to the blog, but I’m waiting for the right time. For example, I have my next student loan update written and ready to go for whenever my total amount outstanding drops again (which should be in about a month – more on that in a minute). Also, I’ve been working on some other projects that are taking up some time so I’ve only been writing for the blog in my spare time.

Third, I’ve been working really hard to cull and delete a ton of the tags on this blog. If you don’t know what a “tag” is, it’s the keywords that bloggers use to help their individual pages categorize themselves and rise up in the search engines. A few years ago I utilized a system that provided a whole host of tags for specific keywords and that has bogged down and crapped up the database for the blog. As an example, if I wrote something about my old Chevy Blazer, I would get the following tags added to the database: Chevy, Chevy Blazer, Blazer, Chevrolet, Chevrolet Blazer, Blazer SUV, SUV, Chevy SUV, etc. That’s totally unnecessary. My culling process is reducing all of that gunk to two tags: Chevrolet and Blazer. That’s it – nothing more is needed. Obviously, this is a long process since there are some 6 or 7 thousand of tags in the database that need to be reviewed and deleted. I’m going through them about 250 at a time and I hope to have the project completed by the end of the year.

And the final part of this part of the update is that I’m looking for ways to freshen up the design of the blog. If you’ve been eagle-eyed, then over the last few weeks you might have noticed random updates here and there in certain design features (the addition of the Twitter feed, the lengthening of the Facebook feed, the layout change for news from the other sites that I own, change in some of the external button links, etc). However, I’ve been thinking that it might be time for wholesale change – I just don’t know how far I want to take it. If you have any ideas on how to change the design, please feel free to add them to the comments section of this post (but don’t post hate or it won’t get to see the light of day!).

That’s it for the JerseySmarts.com Update. And before I end the web-based updates I thought I might add that one of the sites that I own through Usable Web Solutions, LLC has really exploded in the last month and a half. Hits to that website have tripled and it is growing into a very respected site. I’m proud of the team that works there and plan to continue providing them with as much support as possible to let the growth continue. As for the rest of my life…

Things have been very busy. Towards the end of January my company moved its offices from Trenton to New Brunswick. That’s about ten miles less of a drive each morning for me, but the same amount of time thanks to the Route 18 traffic (which sucks). However, I tried to bypass most of the heavy traffic by changing my work schedule from 9am-ish to 5pm-ish to 7:45am-ish to 4:00pm-ish. I’m getting up earlier and leaving my house about an hour and a half earlier, but I’m also getting home right at or slightly before 5:00pm, so that’s an hour and a half earlier than the Trenton commute. The change hasn’t been too bad, but when you shift your schedule to work (and live life) an hour and a half earlier, you experience a personal seismic shift.

On my end, I’m finding that I have less time to spend on the computer in the evening (not playing around on the computer, but working on computer-based, paid projects). Also, I find that I’m totally exhausted by about 3:00pm. I think this is happening because my body isn’t used to going to bed at 10:00pm so I wind up tossing and turning for about a half an hour (though I’m totally beat right now and expect to sleep like a log tonight). It’s a change and I’ll get used to it.

Also, we’re getting towards the end of the college basketball season and I’ve been busy attending the Monmouth University men’s basketball team home games. The Hawks have struggled a little bit this season, but they’re starting to show signs of strength heading into their last four games of the season. Oh, and unlike the last few years I don’t really have a ton of pictures to post from these home games. I’ve actually been sitting back and enjoying the games instead of waiting for the perfect camera shot. However, I have taken a small handful of pictures at the games (mostly of the scoreboard after the games are over) and I plan to post them in the next few weeks.

I’ve also been hit with a variety of big expenses in the last few weeks. First, I spent a good deal of money traveling to Washington, DC for a business trip last week (granted, these expenses will be reimbursed, but I have to wait for the reimbursement to arrive). Then, I had my car crap out on me and it cost over eleven hundred bucks to get the thing fixed. And on the same day that I paid to get the car fixed, I co-hosted a fundraiser/donor recognition event at one of the Monmouth home games (which wasn’t a huge expense, but still an irregular expense in my routine budget). While all of these expenses are manageable, they are all irregular costs in my planned budget and they all hit within the same three day period. So… I’m glad that tomorrow is pay day!

Between the big shift in my personal schedule and the time I’ve been spending at the Monmouth games, my health is more or less in a stalemate. I haven’t been to the gym in about three weeks because I can’t figure out this new schedule yet, but my weight hasn’t moved too much and my blood sugar is very stable. I’m glad about the blood sugar being stable because a shift in routine combined with a reduction in the amount of medication that I’m taking could have formed the perfect storm to throw my blood sugar out of whack. On the topic of health, I purchased the Rebel Fitness Guide from Nerd Fitness a few weeks ago and I just finished reading it. Any guy who writes fitness articles and quotes the Lord of the Rings, uses Legos as a graphic tool, and frequently references the video games that I grew up playing and other nerdy topics is alright with me! I expect to begin the Level 1 Rookie workout around the beginning of March so be on the lookout for updates on how I’m progressing with that workout program.

Other than what’s posted above I don’t have many more big updates to provide right now. One of the last originally-written posts that I wrote for the blog was about finding a new church to attend that is close to where I live. Well, I’m still going to church there on a weekly basis and I find it amazing that I used to think that I didn’t have the time to go to church. Absolutely amazing. The services last about 45 – 50 minutes and when you factor in driving there and driving home, I’m only out of the house for about an hour and five minutes each Sunday morning. Who can’t give an hour and five minutes to go to church each week?! In fact, I continue to find that I enjoy going to church to listen to the homilies and the readings and so on. It’s nice – makes you feel good after you leave and gives you guidance for the week.

I’ve also been reading a lot on the NOOK, in The Word Among Us daily meditations, and random articles – so I have a lot to update on the site when I get a moment to do so! Stay tuned and in the mean time, follow me on Twitter @JVince81!